Cut an X in bottom of each tomato and blanch in a large pot of boiling water for about 10 seconds. Immediately transfer tomatoes with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to cool, then peel, seed, and chop.

Cook the garlic and onion in oil in a small heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is golden and the onion is translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and jalapeno and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes.

Add in the dry spices. Now is a good time to taste to ensure you are happy with the base flavor and the amount of heat. Add in the beans, cilantro and Soyrizo. Cook for an additional 15 minutes. Stir in the chocolate, which will give the chili a darker brown color and make it creamier.

Thinly slice the cucumber, onion and pepper. Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar and cilantro with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Toss all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and stick in the fridge to marinate.

Kenny knows how to cook. And he has been cooking for a long long time. Me on the other hand... not so much. I spent early adulthood eating Rice-A-Roni and microwavable burritos. The Italian in me is very ashamed to admit that this is my first time making eggplant parm. Kenny's not an eggplant person, so I alone was to bare the burden if I screwed this up. Luckily it turned out pretty good!

Cut the eggplant into 1/2 inch thick slices. Sprinkle salt onto both sides of the eggplant and let drain for 30 minutes. Salting draws out water and helps collapse the air pockets in the eggplant's spongy flesh. This makes the eggplant much less able to soak up lots of oil during frying. Rinse the eggplant thoroughly to remove the salt.

The breadcrumbs I was using were already lightly salted so I just added black pepper and some herbes de provence that we had in the pantry. Bread in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. Pan fry in small batches, flipping once so that each side is evenly browned. It should only take a minute or two on each side.

Assemble in layers in a casserole dish with the cheeses and tomato sauce. Bake at 350 degree for about 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is nicely melted.

This yielded 6 servings. I ate some for lunch yesterday and thought it was a little bland. I dumped some extra sauce on it today and that helped. Next time I'm going to bake the eggplant- I really don't need all that extra fat from frying. Also, I'll make the pasta sauce with Yves meatless ground, onion and more spice.

Cut an X in bottom of each tomato and blanch in a large pot of boiling water for about 10 seconds. Immediately transfer tomatoes with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to cool, then peel, seed, and chop.

Cook garlic in oil in a small heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and red-pepper flakes and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes. Add in the fresh basil and tomato paste, simmer 15 more minutes. Season as you like.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

We were invited to a BBQ at our friends Aaron & Becca's place on Saturday, so we decided to make some caprese skewers to bring along. Katie skewered up some fresh mozzarella, peppers, cherry tomatoes and chunks of gala melon. We had a pint of cherry tomatoes from the CSA delivery which yielded about 30 skewers. Kenny whipped up a nice balsamic vinaigrette, which got drizzled on top along with some fresh basil. Easy and so delicious.

Boil the water and add the bulgar, cook for about 20 minutes. Chop the tomato & cucumbers into 1/4 cubes. Combine the parsley, lemon juice and olive oil for the dressing, with salt & pepper to taste. Combine all ingredients and stick it in the fridge to cool down. Best served cold w/baked falafel!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Hi! I suppose we should introduce ourselves.We are Katie & Kenny.Katie is a photographer and she is hoping to learn more about food photography as a side effect of this blog. Kenny is a full-time Whole Foods employee, part-time party machine. Kenny is the mastermind behind the majority of the recipes you will find here. We have lived together in San Francisco for about a year and everyone who visits us spends roughly 25% of the time complaining about how goddamn cold it is here. We don't mind it so much, in fact, we recently took advantage of one of the many benefits the climate has to offer- year-round local produce delivery!

If you are not familiar, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically that means that we pay a monthly fee to a local farm to have just-freaking-picked-the-day-before produce delivered to our front door. Not only is this just about as green as it gets, it has changed our whole culinary life.

We have spent most of our adulthood being vegetarian (Katie), or vegan (Kenny). Even though we still stick to a mostly meat-free diet, we have no reservations about trying anything new. We are also both trying to eat healthier so we don't get fat in our old age.

This blog is meant to document what we get from Capay Valley each week and what exactly we do with it. We couldn't be more satisfied with the quality and variety of the produce we have received. We hope our blog will inspire others to increase their use of seasonal ingredients and also provide ways to make produce taste SO GOOD! (ARROWED!)